georgie johnson
i take my hat off
Last time was cups, sloshing over brims,
made for sticky steps.
I won that fucking hat that I tried to give to the second-hand store at least ten times more,
but it was so attached to that night,
smelling sweet.
Not quite, but almost, when I think of it in a different way,
sickly.
I do remember it sat in the hallway,
each time you passed you asked if you could have it
as if to remind me, what you wanted,
but I was firm and cruel.
I wanted you to taste a bit of that
deprivation, like that night we’d swayed more to the music than the drink,
and kissed more from the drink than the music.
To find you’d leave – unceremoniously,
before it had ended
before it even started –
finger in a drink making swirls,
you’d gone home with some other girl.
Georgie Johnson is a recent BA graduate, artist and writer who enjoys chasing and estranging the mundane moments in life.